"These costs assume that the inkjet printer functions correctly. In fact, you'll waste an incredible amount of ink on paper jams, poorly calibrated photo software and cartridges that dry out.
"Speaking of outsourcing printing, another job worth shipping out is scanning. The price of scanning slides has fallen dramatically from over a dollar a slide to about a quarter a slide, since outfits like Scan Cafe have shipped production to the Third World. For 1,000 slides or negatives, a fairly typical home archival project, buying your own high-quality scanner, like the Epson Perfection, is a tad cheaper (about $200), but you'll spend hundreds of hours of your own time on the job. If your time has any value at all, it is pointless except for restoration hobbyists."
